Videos of espresso extractions - Page 6

[cannonfodder]

You may need aspirin for this one as it's my first crappy attempt at video which I will improve but it shows the problems I have been having with stalactites that hang around too long. Another thing I noticed is very frequent "dead spots". I would have cut the extraction shorter but I didn't have a free hand so I let it go to the end of the programmed dose.

Your machine and grinder are capable so lets focus on technique/dose/grind. You say your are using WDT. Most people with a mini E don't really need to use that since the machine produces a relatively clumpless grind (when compared to say a Gaggia MDF). But if you are comfortable doing it, why change.

Your shot was quite long, 35 seconds for an undisclosed volume. You defiantly have some channeling issues. How much coffee are you packing into the basket and what kind of tamper are you using (flat or convex).

Off the top of my head, I would say leave the grind the same, lower your dose by 2 grams and see what happens.

[Italyhound]

Your machine and grinder are capable so lets focus on technique/dose/grind. You say your are using WDT. Most people with a mini E don't really need to use that since the machine produces a relatively clumpless grind (when compared to say a Gaggia MDF). But if you are comfortable doing it, why change.

Your shot was quite long, 35 seconds for an undisclosed volume. You defiantly have some channeling issues. How much coffee are you packing into the basket and what kind of tamper are you using (flat or convex).

Off the top of my head, I would say leave the grind the same, lower your dose by 2 grams and see what happens.

The mazzer mini E seems like a clumping monster and that's why I went with the WDT. Interesting that you said the opposite - I knew it was one of the negatives with this doserless grinder. I am using the espro clicking tamper.

The shot was for a set 1.5 oz in 35 secs but I didn't touch the grind for this second attempt. I have been dosing the basket by volume more than weight but by definitely easing up the tapping of the PF after stirring on this next one, the dose was 14 gms - seemed low but I went with it. PF definitely dried very well although I always do. Peaks not as bad this time and come together in about 10 seconds this time. Some sprayers in there (oh the humility ) and those pesky dead spots. Dead spots have been plaguing me .

Got better lighting on this one ....




Thanks for all your input .....

[cannonfodder]

Well, that did make a change, for better or worse, it did make a change. When diagnosing a problem, make one change at a time so you can track the effect. Since you do not have a scale, can you take a photo of the prepared portafilter? I would like to see how much headspace you have after the tamp. A photo of the used puck before you knock it out would be helpful as well. That will show any signs of off level tamping, channeling, and uneven distribution.

Because coffee swells, if one spot is denser than another, the used puck will be heaved up in spots from the uneven swelling of the puck.

If you are using a straight down tamp after the level, try using a nutating motion before you tamp, like this...


From the Tamp and Dose Techniques Digest

One last set of questions, what kind of beans are you using, how fresh are they and what is your brew pressure set at?

[Italyhound]

Actually, I have a scale so I will weigh the dose next time to get a starting reference point. The 14g in the above video is definitely on the light side for the VII basket. I will also grab some pics of the PF and puck.

The beans I am using are from a local roaster here in Philly, La Colombe (Nizza blend), and they are fresh. I buy them straight from their bins on delivery day. I wish there was more choice here in town and I will eventually order online but I want to go wide before going deep so as to minimize wastage on shipped coffees.

As far as brew pressure, I think Chris' sets it at 9-10 bar if I am not mistaken but I am unsure. (That is one variable I haven't even thought about playing with yet.)

As for tamping, I am a 'nutant' since seeing your very good tamping video so that's not a variable.

Will report back....

[HB]

Peaks not as bad this time and come together in about 10 seconds this time. Some sprayers in there (oh the humility ) and those pesky dead spots. Dead spots have been plaguing me

I see a center dead spot. Some machines will do that when they don't have enough headspace, even more so if they have a center bolt. But peaks and dead spots aside for a second, how does it taste?

[Italyhound]

Taste is pretty good on average as long as timing not out of whack but I am trying to develop good habits early on. When I was young I could play a wicked Free Bird on guitar but didn't know the first thing about scales. I learned from that mistake.

[cannonfodder]

The dead center spot is why I suggested a down dose and inquired as to your piston type and tamping action. Too little headspace (where the center of the puck is touching the shower screen) will do that. A convex tamper and uneven distribution can do that as well. The center could be getting compressed more than the outer edges making it denser and slower to extract. Keep in mind, these are educated guesses. There is usually no silver bullet but several pieces of the puzzle that need to come together. That is something only time will teach.

14 gram is a little light, although that is the 'standard' weight for a double. I run 17g on my Faema, but that is me on my machine. your taste and your machine may be different.

I have never sampled that roasters beans, but the 'straight from their bins' is somewhat disconcerting. I am not a fan of 'bins'. To much light and air, the coffee goes bad quickly. A high brew pressure can cause problems as well. 9 bar is OK, but 10 is getting a bit on the high side

[cannonfodder]

Italyhound, how are you making out? Any improvement?

[Italyhound]

Things are improving more from the 'peaks' perspective but still getting a lot of dead spots and spraying. It seems that with the coffee I am using and the double VII basket, there is really no way to get effectively less than 18g per dose, get good timing and still be able to distribute (any lower - and using WDT - the top of the level is under the PF rim).

I am paying some attention to the puck after the shot now too after your last post. It is definitely favoring one side over another in terms of level tamp. I am in the process of trying to correct that. When I video my next pull, I will include pre post puck shots for evaluation.

I am not going to bite off more than I can chew but I am going to a local roaster today on my day off to try out a different coffee as well. Still, I think the issues are me and not the coffee, but this guy is a Seattle emigre to Philly (John Hornall) and I wanted to see what he's up to in my 'hood.



Evan

[woodchuck]

Evan, glad things are getting better. A couple of things that I have found with my VII that you might want to consider. By the way, I'm no expert. I have only had the machine a week but am getting some good pours from it. First try changing the shower screen configuration to the one posted on Chas's site www.rimpo.org. I find this has worked better for me. I have also found that I get better results with a convex tamper. As pointed out earlier this may contribute to a dead spot but I have not noticed this on my shots. I updose a small amount. I don't have a scale to weigh the coffee but I find a level double basket has a tendency to channel on me whereas a slightly rounded basket is just right. Again, I still get sprayers occasionally but not very often once I got to this point.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Ian

[Italyhound]

Thanks Ian. I will check that out on the VII site.

Interestingly, I bought a different blend today as I had been using only one since I got the machine. I switched mainly because I don't think I love it all that much. The extractions with this new coffee today seem much better as I was testing out some shots with grind tweaks. Although I would like to think it's all my fault - I do wonder . Do different coffees allow greater margins of error in dosing - distibuting and tamping?

Evan

[cannonfodder]

The simple answer is yes. Different blends are major changes. There is big difference in the density of different blends as well as different roast levels. The darker the bean, the lower the mass of the bean and the easier it is to grind. So say a Robusta bean roasted to full city+ will be much lighter than a high grown hard bean Yemen roasted to city+.

The changes in density will make a difference in the amount of ground coffee you can put in the portafilter. When comparing weight to volume.

As to the tamper, my personal preference is convex. Something I tested in the tamper roadshow. Piston shape does make a difference.

[CyclingCraig]

Well here is one of my first bottomless PF extractions..

How does it look? Can you see anything wildly wrong? I can see it's starting too much around the edges of the PF, instead of a nice even start..
I am still VERY new, so I am looking for critiques.


Thanks
Craig

[oofnik]

Craig, if you watch your pressure gauge as the shot begins, you can see that coffee starts flowing way before the pressure ramps up to the full 9 bar (or whatever your OPV is set at). I might be wrong but I think this indicates that there is some channeling going on. There is more channeling evidence because you get a steady stream on the left hand side of the basket before coffee appears anywhere else. How did it taste?

Here is my video:

Pulled on my PIDed La Pavoni. You can see that the crema disappears quickly. Very harsh and bitter taste. Beans are two day old home roasted FC blend of 60 Brazil/ 40 Yemen mokha.

[DC]

...Pulled on my PIDed La Pavoni. You can see that the crema disappears quickly....

I quite often see this happening too. Is it just because the beans are fresh and the coffee is still quite gassy, causing the crema to collapse? Or is it something else?

DC

[timo888]

Here is my video:

Is your brew temperature possibly too high? There seems to be quite a lot of steam rising up from the glass.

Regards
Timo

[oofnik]

Nah, it almost always does that. The controller is set at 92.5C which is more or less equal to the brew water temp (I've calibrated it). I think it's just the lighting.

[HB]

Craig... I might be wrong but I think this indicates that there is some channeling going on. There is more channeling evidence because you get a steady stream on the left hand side of the basket before coffee appears anywhere else. How did it taste?

If you watch the stream, there's also "barber pole" channeling. A thin, sour taste would confirm.

Very harsh and bitter taste. Beans are two day old home roasted FC blend of 60 Brazil/ 40 Yemen mokha.

The extraction looked pretty good. Reading "harsh and bitter taste", my first thought is that you should drop the temperature. I don't have experience in blending espresso, but I drink lots of single origin Yemen and love it. But for a blend, a ratio of 40% sounds high. I'll defer judgment to the more experience blenders...

[BurBunny]

Guess who else just got a Naked PF?



This was my 5th try with the NPF. First one I got a tiny squirter at the end, but otherwise went well. Didn't try videoing until the 3rd attempt, it took a couple tries to get a moderately acceptable video. Forgive the odd aspect ratio as I filmed it portrait orientation for my camera and then had to rotate, giving it a compressed look.

Am using Gaggia Espresso, Rocky grinder, Black Cat beans roasted on 12/26 (not delivered until 1/6 due to all the snow storms in Colorado) then vacuum packed and frozen (yes, I know, but I was out of the country when they came in and was the only way to preserve them at all until I returned) in small batches on 1/6, thawed out yesterday. For size reference, that's a Bodum shot glass under the PF. I use WDT for distribution and tamp using the ESPRO tamper, so consistent 30 pounds pressure.

By the way, when Intelligentsia realized what had happened with the shipment, they offered to replace it for me. Talk about terrific service!

Am guessing the largish cone at the end has to do with the age of the beans?

Definitely the resulting crema is age-related. Here's a pic of the shot 1 minute post-extraction



And the top of the shot immediately after the previous image



Couple questions I have. To my eye when I was pulling the shot, I stopped it when it was blonding, at approximately 26 seconds. However, in viewing the video, it doesn't look as blonde as most of the "espresso porn" I've seen here and CG. Am I stopping too soon? If so, then obviously I need to fine up the grind a bit more.

Any and all comments and advice is welcome. Am new since Christmas to all this, so I know I still have a lot to learn!

[HB]

To my eye when I was pulling the shot, I stopped it when it was blonding, at approximately 26 seconds. However, in viewing the video, it doesn't look as blonde as most of the "espresso porn" I've seen here and CG. Am I stopping too soon? If so, then obviously I need to fine up the grind a bit more.

According to my stopwatch:

Beading at 7 seconds
Full bulging cone at 14 seconds
Puck expansion cutoff at 21 seconds
Extraction ended at 24 seconds.

Obviously beading is seen earlier with bottomless portafilters than spouted, by about 2-3 seconds. You can see the puck's expansion throttling down the flow rate at 21 seconds, which signals the end of the shot will be only a few seconds more. You could have let it go a second or two longer, but really, that's quibbling.

What I find interesting about this video is the enormous expansion of the cone! In fact I sent a similar video to Matt Riddle at Intelligentsia commenting "I've never Black Cat do anything like this, what do you think?" He helpfully offered, "I have no idea..... that looks terrible. I've never seen shots pull like that."

Without knowing how it tasted, I'll suggest that you try Black Cat served Intelligentsia's way: Ristretto and a longer pull. Jon's How to make a beautiful "naked" triple espresso gives you the blow-by-blow. The cliff notes version is updose a bit more, tighten the grind, let it flow longer.